Monsters vs. The Sons of Metallurgy

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2013)

Pacific Rim is a fun movie that's worth seeing in the theater. Its only real flaw is that it leaves you with the feeling that with just a little more effort it could have been a lot more fun.
The special effects are very good, but the film spends more time focusing on the robots than the monsters - I wish the director would have adjusted that balance slightly. The battles are exciting, but it's not a good sign when the penultimate fight is way more thrilling than the final battle. The final monster battle is so muddled that it's hard to tell which monsters, if any, are taking damage, dealing damage, being defeated, etc.
The character underdevelopment in this movie is so conspicuous as to appear deliberate. In fact, it's a good thing Charlie Hunnam already has several seasons of Sons of Anarchy under his belt to prove his acting chops - I doubt if his performance in Pacific Rim will have his agent's phone ringing off the hook.
Idris Elba does a fine job trying to channel drill instructors R. Lee Ermey, Lou Gossett, Jr., and Michael Ironside. But it's a bit of a letdown when we find out that the big, mysterious secret he's protecting is that he is a father figure to Jax Teller's cute Japanese co-pilot.
Although I must admit that good dad/bad son is an interesting alternative to good cop/bad cop, that whole dynamic with the Australian Jaeger pilots was still played out in a very clichéd and unbelievable way. I would have preferred a little less focus on them and a little more dialog from the other Jaeger pilots.
The most well developed characters are also the two most obnoxious: the eccentric scientists. Charlie Day is the Bobcat Goldthwaite for our time, but at least with Bobcat you knew his mannerisms were just schtick. With Charlie Day you're never sure, and that's twice as annoying. I guess the other guy is the Crispin Glover for our time - I have no idea what to think about that.
In the end, a monster movie should be about monsters. There are a few well done snippets of monster fights in the daylight, but the majority of the confrontations take place at night, or during the rain, or underwater, or some combination of the three. For all the realism, it's still often hard to figure out exactly what is going on.
Ironically, even with all the millions of dollars spent on incredibly convincing robot and monster effects, the connection between the Jaeger pilots and their machine looks like a cheap vacuum cleaner hose. That kept making me laugh and taking me out of the moment.
Still, there are just enough plot twists thrown in to keep things interesting - from the black market in Kaiju parts to the risk/reward of "drifting" with the Kaiju. At over two hours, this is quite a long movie, but to its credit it doesn't really drag too much. Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 all dragged out their "time between big action sequences" as much, if not more, than Pacific Rim.
I'm hoping I'll like this movie even more after a second viewing, just like I did with Hellboy II: The Golden Army. But as with H2:TGA, I can wait for it to come out on cable TV.
I can't remember whether Pacific Rim set itself up for a sequel or not, but I had enough fun watching it that I'd pay to see one.